For years, big banks have been lying about debanking conservative customers for political reasons. They tried to hide behind “regulatory pressure” when explaining why they closed accounts or denied services, but President Donald Trump’s Aug. 7 executive order put that excuse to rest. With it, the dubious and widely abused “reputational risk” standard has been torn from the banks’ playbook, as it is thankfully no longer recognized by the federal government.

The plain fact is that every time a bank chose to drop a customer over so-called “reputational risk,” they were really talking about preserving their own reputation with powerful left-wing activists at the expense of everyday Americans.

After Obama-era regulators gave banks the green light to treat “negative public opinion” as a serious risk, some of the biggest banks enthusiastically seized on language so vague that it allowed them to freely target conservative-leaning industries and individuals, including gun stores, faith-based groups, and even the Trump family. Red state officials, such as Alabama’s state auditor

© Washington Examiner